My Planning Planner

As I had mentioned in a previous post when I was talking about the Happy Planner and My Experience, I planned on posting another blog post about how I use both of my Happy Planners (yes, I have two of them). This post will be about how I use one of my planners for planning, and the next post on my blog will be about how I use a whole second planner for memory keeping, somewhat like a diary. Okay, so let's get started!

MY PLANNING PLANNER

First off, let's start with my first planner, which I use everyday to plan out my day. The planner I picked out originally. It's the Classic Planner with the "My Life" cover with a black background and a gold heart on the cover.

Personally, since I carry it around in my backpack while I go to school, and at times in my purse, I decided that the regular classic discs that came with the planner, and it's original size were just a bit too much for me, so I stopped by Michael's and I grabbed the Mini Planner Discs so it would be easier to carry.

With the mini discs I can customize the planner, so usually I only include the next four months so I know what's ahead, and I can plan, without having to carry around my whole entire planner.

The next thing I would like to mention about my planner, is how much I love color coding everything! I usually include a key on a sticky note inside my planner so I know which color stands for which one. For example, I know that my light blue pen is for my Biology class, while my light pink pen is for Psychology. Not only do I color code my classes, but I also color code social events and my work schedule too. Everything that is written in purple means it's part of my work schedule, or something I have to finish up for work. My all time favorite type of pens are the Papermate InkJoy pens. They are inexpensive, and carried at most major retailers. I use my InkJoy pens for color coding my classes in my planner, as well as color coding in the according notebooks for that class.

When it comes to work and social events however, I like to use the Papermate InkJoy Gel 0.7 pens. I find that the gel pens stand out a bit more, which makes it easier for me to differentiate between different colors in my planner, and I'll notice when pink stands for hanging out with my friends, or for my Psychology homework. These gel pens are fairly new, so I noticed that a lot of major retailers have not carried them yet, but I have seen them at Target (which is where I purchased them) and Office Depot/Max. These ones are not as cheap as the regular InkJoys, but I believe that is because they are the gel form, and I have noticed that they actually last a bit longer too.

Alright, so when it comes to planning in my actual planner, I start off at the beginning of every semester with my regular InkJoy pens and I just write down every single due date for homework or projects, along with test, quiz, and exam dates as well, according to how my professor has them lined up in our course syllabus. I found out that most teachers usually stick to this schedule, so I will write down each assignment in both the monthly and weekly views. The days leading up to right before an assignment is due, I will write down a to do list in black ink with my favorite pens of all time, Uni-Ball Signo 207. Now, these pens are not cheap at all, but they are so worth it. They are the best pens I have ever used! Occasionally, I will even color code with a highlighter over the Uni-Ball Signo's black ink, just to make sure I'm not confused about which homework assignments are due for which class. 

Here is an example of how my weeks are usually laid out:

Here is an example of how my monthly view is usually laid out:

If I feel like being fancy, I will occasionally include a little washi tape, or a few cute stickers or quotes along with my planner layouts. The "Make Your World a Better Place" Inspiration Card and the gold paper clip are actually MAMBI planner products I used as accessories to help decorate my planner. 

I think that pretty much sums up everything I do in my regular planner. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comments section, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have! Stay tuned for another post tomorrow about my memory keeping planner! 

We Happy Few Game Preview

Game: We Happy Few
Publisher: Compulsion Games
Platform: Xbox One and PC
Rachel's PREVIEW Rating: 5 Stars!

If you have been keeping up with all of the recent gaming news since E3, you would have probably found out about a new Microsoft exclusive game, called We Happy Few. Personally, when I first saw footage of the game, it reminded me so much of Bioshock, which is great because Bioshock is a fantastic game!

So, yesterday I was just exploring through the Xbox Store on my Xbox's home screen and it showed that they were providing players with a 45 minute preview of the game, We Happy Few, and I decided to try it out. Although this was the alpha version of the game, it was totally awesome, but I will say, there are a still a few glitches here and there, so just make sure that you're patient and one of the first gamers to test out the game. Plus, another thing I would like to mention is that even though this is the alpha test version of the game, the graphics are STUNNING! For being in test form and looking this good, I can't wait to see the actual game and how great it looks later on this year when it is released!

The game starts off with your character going through the same trailer/preview that they showed at E3 as well, where the player decides on whether or not they should take their "Joy" pill. These "Joy" pills help keep people in a happy mood, allowing them to see only a positive outlook on this world, that actually isn't as positive as it really is. If you don't take the "Joy", the police find out and decide to follow you and hunt you down. Eventually, you do escape into the outdoor world where you have to keep up with your basic health needs, such as hunger, thirst, rest, and so forth, along with completing quests.

By the time I finally finished a quest and I was looking for where to turn it in, unfortunately my free 45 minute trial ended, but I will for sure be preordering this game and playing it when it is officially released! So, if you're interested in playing We Happy Few at all, I would highly recommend hopping on your Xbox One and trying out the free 45 minute trial!

If you haven't had a chance to watch the preview that was first shown at E3 a few months ago, here it is:




That's it for right now! I hope you have a wonderful day!
-Rachel

The Happy Planner and my Experience

     So a little bit less than a year ago, I was starting my second year in college, and as some of you may or may not know, my life was kinda a mess. I was working and going to school, and my first semester didn't go as well as it should have. I was scrolling through Pinterest one morning when I came across a post about The Happy Planner. It was this somewhat brand new line of planners from a company called Me & My Big Ideas (MAMBI, for short).  I decided to check these planners out by going to my local Michael's store, which at the time, was the only store in my town that carried The Happy Planner. While I was there I picked up my first ever planner, the My Life standard size 2015-2016 planner, along with a few other accessories like their Inspiration Cards, and lined paper inserts.

     Not even joking, less than a week later I found myself back in Michael's and buying more lined paper inserts, decorative planner covers, and sticky note inserts! I was completely and totally in love! From that moment on I have been decorating my planner everyday by color coding it, and now I have even added in Washi Tape and stickers from the MAMBI sticker packs they just released a few months ago.

     Stay tuned for a post about how I plan out my life using the Happy Planner, and my new planner which I just started using as a memory keeping planner too! Which, I'm also completely in love with memory keeping because it's almost as if I'm writing in a diary, but it's a planner too!

     If you have any questions about the Happy Planner, my experience, or any of their products, feel free to ask me in the comments section down below!

Until Dawn

Game: Until Dawn

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (it's a PlayStation 4 exclusive)

Console/Platform Played On: PlayStation 4

Rachel's Rating: 3 stars

     Until Dawn is a very story based game. The story features 8 teenagers (including one played by Hayden Panettiere from the tv show, Heroes). These 8 teenagers return to a cabin up in the woods to spend the night a year after one of they lost two of their close friends at the same location. The friends start off all flirty, goofy, and friendly when they first arrive, but as this horror story unravels you begin to see the characters turn on one another. The group of friends must survive the night "until dawn" while they are playing their own pranks on one another, as well as a few not so innocent pranks played by a crazy "psychopath". 

     The reason why this game caught my attention was because everything about the game is based on your choices. Similar to one of my favorite games of all time, Mass Effect, every choice you make in Until Dawn will effect the entire outcome of the game. Even something as small as to throw a snowball or not can change the entire ending of the game. There are multiple endings to Until Dawn, and you can always go back once you have completed a chapter; if you're interested in seeing another outcome of the game. 

      Overall, I was kinda not impressed with Until Dawn. The game was one of the main reasons why I even bought a PlayStation 4 (sorry, I've always been a hardcore Xbox fangirl), and of course I was going to play other games and I have a lot of friends on my PS4, but I definitely got my hopes up for this game, only to be disappointed. A large portion of the game is all about quick time events (you have to make a decision in less than 10 seconds for a majority of the game). Although there wasn't much gameplay to Until Dawn, I did enjoy the story, and the characters were quite intriguing. I even found myself trying to purposefully kill off a few of the teenagers because I just found their character to be so incredibly annoying, hahaha! 

     If you're looking for a game with a lot of story, one that you can kinda just sit back and enjoy without too much action, I would definitely recommend Until Dawn, otherwise though, you might want to try a different PlayStation exclusive (Last Of Us, anyone?).